Jottings from the Granite Studio

Zhou Enlai (1898-1976)
Today is the birthday of Zhou Enlai, born in Hui’an in Jiangsu Province in 1898. Zhou’s grandfather was a minor official but like many scholar families in the late Qing, the Zhou clan had fallen on hard times, and despite many attempts, Zhou Enlai’s father failed to pass the imperial examinations. At the age of ten, Zhou was adopted by his uncle, who was childless and ill with tuberculosis, so that the uncle would not die without an heir. It was in fact Zhou’s adopted mother who taught the young man to read characters and who encouraged him in school. He was by all accounts a good student who would later go on to attend university in Japan and in Tianjin where the young revolutionary led student protests as part of the May 4th Movement and was arrested for his activities. Zhou left China in 1920 on a work-study program to France and it was in Paris that he met a 16-year old student from Sichuan named Deng Xiaoping. It was in Europe that both Deng and Zhou formally joined the Communist Party in 1921.*

Madame Chiang Kai-shek Song Meiling (1898-2003)
Today is also the birthday of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Song Meiling, born in either 1897 or 1898 depending on whom you ask. She was the youngest of the famed “Soong sisters,” the daughters of the wealthy businessman Charlie Soong. Of the sisters it is said (on movie posters anyway) one loved power (Meiling) one loved money (Ailing, who married banker and KMT Finance Minister H.H. Kung) and one loved her country (Qingling, who married Sun Yat-sen and served, briefly, as honorary president of the PRC.)

Raised a Methodist, Song Meiling graduated from Wellesley College and spoke nearly flawless English. (If you haven’t heard it, it’s kind of like Kate Hepburn as interpreted by Michelle Yeoh). She met Chiang Kai-shek in 1920 and the Generalissimo was smitten.

And already married.

And not a Christian.

It took seven years to resolve these sticky issues, but in 1927, Meiling and Chiang Kai-shek finally wed in a Christian ceremony.

Song Meiling became the KMT’s most potent foreign relations asset. She was featured on the cover of Time Magazine twice and her charm and grace impressed members of the US congress, where she spoke fervently and passionately requesting American aid for China against the Japanese invasion. She was an acquaintance of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who once remarked about Madame Chiang: “She can talk beautifully about democracy. But she does not know how to live democracy.”

Following her husband’s death in 1975, Song Meiling spent her remaining years in semi-seclusion among an estate on Long Island, an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and…wait for it…a summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. She passed away in 2003.

The Final Word
Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in a 1943 address to the United States Congress:

“I can assure you that China is eager and ready to cooperate with you and other people to lay a true and lasting foundation for a sane and progressive world society which would make it impossible for any arrogant or predatory neighbor to plunge future generations into another orgy of blood. In the past, China has not computed the cost to her manpower in her fight against aggression, although she well realized that manpower is the real wealth of a nation and it takes generations to grow it. She has been soberly conscious of her responsibilities and has not concerned herself with privileges and gains which she might have obtained through compromise of principles. Nor will she demean herself and all she holds dear to the practice of the market alone.

We in China, like you, want a better world not for ourselves alone, but for all of mankind, and we must have it. It is not enough, however, to proclaim our ideals or even to be convinced that we have them. In order to preserve, uphold and maintain them, there are times when we should throw all we cherish into our effort to fulfill those ideals even at the risk of failure.”

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*I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that my good friend (and best man at my wedding) T.M.H.’s great-grandfather was a running buddy of Zhou Enlai back in the day, skulking outside of Parisian Cafes and living in the student dormitories.

Image top right: Zhou Enlai, sporting quite the goatee
Image bottom right: Photograph of Song Meiling with Eleanor Roosevelt